The Blurb On The Back:

Discover more about You with the Mr Men and the Little Miss.

A new series to encourage children to understand more about their own emotions and how to manage them with the help of the Mr Men and Little Miss.

MR MEN LITTLE MISS BE KIND was released in the United Kingdom on 4th August 2022.  Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

You can order MR MEN LITTLE MISS BE KIND by Roger Hargreaves and Elizabeth Kilbey from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

The Review (Cut For Spoilers):

Mr Happy is happy because he does kind things for other people.  Mr Mean is unhappy because all he does is mean things to other people.  Mr Happy thinks he knows how to make Mr Mean make better decisions – decisions that will make him happier – and he enlists Little Miss Giggles to help.  Together they spend the day with Mr Mean to help him see the benefits of being kind but can they really persuade him to change his behaviour … ?

Roger Hargreaves and Elizabeth Kilbey’s picture book (part of the DISCOVER MORE ABOUT YOU SERIES) uses the MR MEN AND LITTLE MISS trade mark silly humour to explore what it means to be kind and why it’s important to be kind, both for yourself and for other people. It’s a lot of fun and there’s advice for parents, care givers and teachers at the end with suggestions on how to read the book with young readers.

Mr Mean and Mr Happy take centre stage in this book to explore how being kind can make you happier as well as help (and therefore make happier) those around you.  I would have liked Little Miss Giggles to have done a bit more in terms of helping Mr Mean to discover the benefits of being kind as she is a bit of a tag-a-long but this didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book.  I did enjoy the displays of other Mr Men and Little Miss being kind almost as much as I enjoyed how it shows that some of them can be very unkind and self-interested, e.g. Little Miss Stubborn.

There are some genuinely fun moments and if you’re a parent, care-giver or teacher then there’s a section at the back that gives you advice on how to help young readers read it, which I think is a nice touch.

All In all, I think this is a good way of introducing young readers to dealing with emotions and how to behave around others by combining humour with a serious message that doesn’t cross over into being preachy.  As such, I’d definitely check out other books in this series.